Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1887-05-12
The LIVELY SOUTH.
lore limpses OF the Charming City OF
the MGuntains-Great Manufactur-
Tug E~nternrises

! &E. INEa L-r - N7EEa
M0re Glimpses of the Charming City OF
the MGuntains-Great Manufacture
ing Enterprises.
Chattanooga, Tenn, May 8. 19s7-Cor,
respondence Press and Dakotaian-The
crazy real estate boom of last winter
stopped here all at once Buyers sud,
denly disappeared and most Offices
were either closed or deserted by
business. But prices stand firm
at high-water marx, and nexs
fall may see q repetition of the same ex-
cItement.
Building goes on, oil over town and
suburbs, for a radius oil three or four
miles out, with great activity. They
claim there are $50 buildings now nm
der contract. Two or three great new
lines of railroad are being fought for
by the progressive party of the CITY:
and the net work of roads that already
crowd into town and focns in the union
depot, is enough to bewilder your re-
porter.
Then the factories, shops, furnaces
and mills are of the most immense
and varied description. Three of US
Y~anktonians visited the Oitlco iron
furnace, where the ore is smelted, and
| pig iron run out at the rate of 100 tons
per day and where the heated fame
from the cupola is made to pass through
immense fire brick masses in iron drums,
which in turn impart heat TO the draft
air; SO that the hurricane of hot,air
from the blow pipe enters the cupola at
a temperature of 400 degrees. There
are three OF these drums, perhaps 60
feet high and 10 feet diameter. Two
are always being heated up while one Is
serving to heat the fresh air; and they
serve alternately an hour alta time. BY
the combined power of a great engine to
blow, and a ten-foot smoke-stack $50
feet high to draw, o pretty strong blast
of oxygen is produced. The railroads in
all directions are being eyerlastinsly
bsllasted with the broken Stag from
this furnace.
The Roane Iron 90. has o similar fur
mace forty miles away IN the mountains,
with offices here. 1t has also just
erected here an immense Bessemer steel
works, which made its first
run of steel yesterday with
great success. Chattanooga claims the
honor of being the first city in the south
to convert southern pig iron into BESSIE
mer steel and roll 1t into steel T rails
The city is hurrahing over the complete
success of yesterday, which insures
steady work for 500 men in this mill
aione. The papers announced the event
in advance, and e crowd gathered; but a
Gordon of police kept them all far from
the scene of danger, and only o few saw
the operation. As Bessemer steel making
is not understood by every school boy,
I draw upon this mornings daily for
facts.
The pig iron is melted in a great ele-
waited oupola, much as in q common
foundry. A great ladle on C car holding
5 to Z tons runs on an iron track high in
the sir conveying ladlefuls of melted
iron to the converter. This latter com
prises the essential parts OF Bessemer't
invention. 1t is a queer funnel shaped
vessel OF iron, lined with fire clay, and
hung upon arm pivots like q cannon. By
q huge rack and pinion it can be tipped
or turned SO as to either contain or pour
the metal.
One arm is a hollow shaft or
blow-pipe, through which the
air blast enters and is conveyed
in pipes to the bottom where it lie
blown forcibly into the mass of liquid
IRON. The ladle-car is filled with white
hot fluid end run to the converter, which
is full of burning coke and ss o white
heat inside. The converter is turned
up, the coke dumped out and the five
tons poured in, IN q very few inmates
The great blower goes to work, the iror
boils, roars and dances ard brilliant
flames pour out. This blowing, boiling
and burning goes on for twenty minutes
growing heroer all the time. The flame
grows too intense and dazzling for com
mon eyes to rest on.
. The oxygen of the air blast that boiled
through the molten mass combines will
) the carbon that existed in the iron O
/ we'll as with other impurities and oil or
consumed with terrific effect. Thit
leaves the metal deoarbonized and puri,
fed iron which constitutes Bessemel
steel. Then the great converter wa
tipped, manganese was added to th
= mass and five tons of cast steel ingot
/ were cast into the sand.
When cooled enough to hold it's form
each ignot was conveyed to the stee
rolls and IS it passed swiftly throug
D one aperture after another it lengthene
7 to a long. darting, snaky, re3-hot iro
rail which ct last was III out upon rol
ers, sawed off ct each end IN Q mcmen
punched with two holes aud became
finished steel rail for laying track; nc
plated on top with steel but Of unlforl
quality.
From this first trial with raw hapi
and new works, it is predicted that tt
converter will transform 250 tons {
cheap iron into good steel every twenty
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